Kinetic7 Technologies, clean-energy technology company headquartered in Abu Dhabi, has suggested that hydrogen gas produced on demand, at the point of use, could help strengthen energy security as Europe and the UK face renewed concerns over gas storage, supply resilience and winter prices.
Gas storage across Europe has fallen to historically low levels for late July, raising fears that the region could enter the winter with reserves well below the five-year average. The pressure has intensified scrutiny of gas supply routes, LNG competition and the UK’s limited storage capacity, making energy security a renewed priority for policymakers, industry and households.
Australian technology entrepreneur and philanthropist Rick Parish has claimed that hydrogen-on-demand systems can play a major role in future-proofing clean gas supplies, reducing reliance on stored or transported fuel and improving resilience for communities and businesses exposed to volatile energy markets.
Parish, the founder of Kinetic7 Technologies, a deep-tech company headquartered in Abu Dhabi with offices in Australia, the US, and Europe, has developed proprietary technology to create hydrogen gas on demand at the point of use. Conventional hydrogen production can require large scale investment, extensive infrastructure and storage, whilst hydrogen stored under pressure requires careful handling. Kinetic7’s technology is designed to remove much of that cost and infrastructure by producing hydrogen only when it is needed.
Originally conceived for humanitarian use in developing and Commonwealth nations, as well as for disaster management and resilience, the company has developed two portable cooking stoves, Nomad™ and Tribe™, which can be rapidly deployed into disaster zones when critical infrastructure and power supplies are disrupted. The portable stoves use water and electrolysis to create hydrogen gas on demand. They require only a small amount of electricity and can be powered by solar panels, a small onboard battery or a mains connection.
The company has now adapted its portable technology into a commercial unit, HODBox™ (Hydrogen On Demand Box), which can be used by restaurants, hotels and large scale catering operations to provide clean gas for cooking. Kinetic7 has said the hydrogen produced on demand can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of current natural gas supplies, making the technology a potentially attractive proposition for hospitality and catering businesses hit by rising energy costs.
Parish’s company is also working on a prototype for the residential market, which it believes could be a significant development for domestic energy supply. Kinetic7 intends to target off-grid households first, following a similar model to the way Elon Musk’s Starlink service was initially positioned for users not connected to mainstream broadband and telephony providers.
Across the UK and Europe, millions of rural and off-grid households remain dependent on heating oil, LPG, biomass, solid fuels or electricity for heat, hot water and cooking. In the UK alone, off-gas-grid homes rely on alternatives such as electricity, heating oil and LPG, while EU households continue to use natural gas as a major source of residential energy.
The residential HODBox™ would be attached to the side of a property and connected to solar panels and/or the mains supply. Because the unit uses only small amounts of electricity, Kinetic7 stated it could provide households with clean gas for hot water, ambient heating and cooking while reducing reliance on stored fossil fuels and making a positive impact on carbon reduction.
Rick Parish, founder and Chairman of Kinetic7 Technologies, said: “Europe’s current gas challenge shows why energy resilience can no longer depend solely on centralised infrastructure, imported fuel and large scale storage. Hydrogen produced at the point of use gives governments, businesses and households another route to clean, secure and deployable energy.”
Parish added: “Energy security is now being shaped by multiple pressures at once: geopolitics, conflict and uncertainty around strategic supply routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, ageing infrastructure, limited storage, competition for LNG, extreme weather, rising demand and the challenge of integrating more renewable power into national grids. No single technology can solve those pressures alone, but decentralised hydrogen-on-demand can form part of a broader resilience strategy by creating clean gas where and when it is needed, rather than relying entirely on long supply chains and large centralised storage.”
Security analysts increasingly warn that energy supply is also exposed to so-called ‘grey zone’ threats: hostile activity that falls below the threshold of conventional war but can still damage nation states through cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation, surveillance and disruption to critical infrastructure. For governments, that makes resilience not only an economic or environmental challenge, but a national-security priority.